Boy Scouts name frmr Sec of Defense Robert Gates as president

A member of the Boy Scouts of America presents the Annual Report to the Nation to Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates in the Pentagon on March 1, 2010. (Photo by Cherie Cullen / defense.gov)

Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who oversaw the end of the US military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy, is the new president of the Boy Scouts of America, an organization still wrestling with its policies involving gay scouts and leaders.

The BSA National Council announced Gates as their national
president on Thursday. He begins his two-year term as the group’s
35th president immediately.

Gates served as the defense secretary under both Presidents
George W. Bush and Barack Obama. He served as president of Texas
A&M University after being the interim dean of the George
Bush School of Government and Public Service at the nation’s
seventh-largest university. He spent 27 years as an intelligence
professional, becoming the only person to rise from entry-level
employee to director of the CIA, according to his Department of
Defense biography.

But before all that, Gates achieved the rank of Eagle Scout at
age 15, the Boy Scouts’ highest advancement rank. He’s also a
past member of the National Executive Board, past president of
the National Eagle Scout Association, a recipient of the Silver
Buffalo Award and a Vigil Honor member of the Order of the Arrow.

“The Boy Scouts of America had a profound influence on my
childhood and helped form the foundation of my career in public
service. I’ve had tremendous opportunities in my life, but I can
say without hesitation that my memories of Scouting are every bit
as vivid and meaningful as what came later. I believe every boy
deserves an opportunity to experience what Scouting offers,”
Gates said in the BSA’s
written statement. “Scouting teaches youth how to set and
achieve goals, develops a deep commitment to serve others, and
creates leaders for tomorrow who are not only prepared to serve
their communities, but also prepared for life and leadership.
Just as it did for me.”

In an interview with
Scouting Magazine published to coincide with the announcement
on Thursday, Gates credited the youth organization for its
influence on his life. “Scouting has been a big part of my
family’s life... In Wichita, Kan., in those days — before
videogames and the Internet and all the rest — life pretty much
revolved around family and school and church and Scouts,” he
said. “I’ve always joked that it was the best and only
leadership course I ever took.”

The announcement comes one day after gay-rights advocates handed
a petition to Amazon asking the ubiquitous online retail giant to
drop the Boy Scouts of America from its list of eligible
charitable organizations under its AmazonSmile giving program.
The petition, signed by 125,000 people, was started by
17-year-old Pascal Tessier after the Boy Scouts of America
enforced its decision to exclude gay adults from the
organization, Time reported.

Tessier, considered the first approved openly gay Eagle Scout,
began gathering signatures after openly gay scoutmaster Geoffrey
McGrath was expelled and his Seattle-area church’s charter
agreement was revoked by the BSA in April, according to Time.

“We’re just asking [Amazon] to follow their own values and
their own policies, because they’re good values and good
policies,” McGrath told MSNBC.
“We’re asking them to make themselves proud.”

“Obviously, they’re known [at Amazon] for being very
progressive and having great policies regarding LGBT
employees,” Tessier said to MSNBC. “We’re asking them to
change this one little thing; we’re not asking them to change who
they are and what they represent.”

While serving as defense secretary, Gates oversaw the end of
‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ the ban on gays serving in the military
instituted during the Clinton administration. The law was
repealed by Congress via the DADT Repeal Act of 2010, which
provided for “the repeal of DADT to be effective 60 days
after the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff certify to Congress that the Armed
Forces are prepared to implement repeal,” according to the
Army. DADT officially
ended on Sept. 20, 2011.

The Boy Scouts voted in 2013 to allow openly gay boys in the
organization, but retained a ban on openly gay adult leaders. The
BSA has 2.5 million youth members and nearly 1 million adults
nationwide. Enrollment has declined slightly over the last
decade, with a 6 percent drop last year, NBC News reported.

Gates addressed the BSA’s change in gay youth membership policy
in his interview. “I think it’s an important step forward,
and I strongly support it. No question that it was the right
thing,” he said. “Now we need to turn our attention to
further improving the quality of the program, getting more kids
into Scouting and re-establishing our unity as a movement.”

The nation’s former top spy is replacing Seattle businessman
Wayne Perry as president, the BSA’s top volunteer position. Gates
is currently the chancellor at his alma mater, the College of
William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. Boy Scouts of America is
headquartered in Irving, Texas.